


old unfamiliar places

by flowermasters



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Feelings, Friendship, M/M, Minor Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Old Man Steve, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Sambucky Bingo 2019, Sambucky Bingo Fill, Secret Relationship, Sharing Clothes, listen i don't even want to think about timelines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-31 02:22:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21048359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowermasters/pseuds/flowermasters
Summary: Sam and Bucky visit Steve. Sam rolls with the punches, admittedly faltering a bit at first.Sambucky Bingo fill.





	old unfamiliar places

**Author's Note:**

> This one got out of hand, I have to admit. 
> 
> [Here's a link to my Bingo card.](https://66.media.tumblr.com/244b6990502449102dff5cc58dfc88b8/tumblr_pzfqx0LqlA1rs54bxo1_400.jpg) For the squares: "caught having sex" and "wearing each other's clothes."

Steve’s house is quiet in the creaky, groaning way of older houses; Sam leans against the sink, one palm resting on the wooden countertop and the other loosely gripping a glass of water, and listens to the house settling. It’s dark outside the kitchen window, but as it’s the height of summer, it’s only an hour and a half past sunset. It’s so peacefully, domestically quiet that Sam can hear the hum of the light fixture above the sink.

Luckily for Bucky, who’d have at best gotten sworn at, the kitchen door has a hinge that needs greasing; he moves so soundlessly, especially on bare feet, that Sam wouldn’t have heard him coming otherwise. “Hey,” Sam says, not turning around; he can see Bucky’s reflection in the glass in front of him. “Figured you’d still be up.”

He knew, actually; the quick glance he’d tossed into the darkened living room on his way to the kitchen had revealed a glimpse of Bucky, lying on his back on the couch, his eyes closed but his posture wakefully stiff. Steve had asked when they arrived, his expression crinkly-fond, if they needed to flip a coin for the guest bedroom. Bucky’d said, _ ah, Sam can take it_, in a carefree tone that belied what Sam knew to be a gentlemanly sweetness that would be irritating if it weren’t charming. It’s almost irritating _ because _ it’s charming.

“Dunno why _ you’re _ up,” Bucky says. “You drove all day. Should be worn out.”

“Just driving,” Sam says, before taking a sip of his water. “I do a lot of it, in case you haven’t noticed.” He’d do less of it if he didn’t always want to drive, of course. He’s had control issues as long as he can remember; popping out of existence one day and only turning back up a year ago didn’t help with that much.

He can feel more than see Bucky rolling his eyes as he moves forward, further into the kitchen and closer to Sam. His reflection sharpens, and Sam’s eye catches on the block text on his t-shirt.

He turns, and sure enough, faded black letters, _ USAF, _ are stamped straight across Bucky’s pectorals. Sam boggles. “Is that mine?”

Bucky glances down at himself. “Yeah,” he says. “I s’pose so.”

“Jesus, Barnes,” Sam says, making himself relax, leaning his hip against the counter. He’s pretty sure he wore that shirt yesterday. “You wanna put up a sign? Flashing neon, _ we’re fucking_?”

“Sure,” Bucky says, dry, “beats the hell out of the tattoo I was thinking about getting.”

This is ridiculous enough that it makes Sam laugh, a chuckle that surprises him. He’s all out of sorts this evening, not sure how to react to anything. The panicky thrill he’d gotten at realizing Bucky is roaming around Steve’s house in _ his _ shirt is offset by the realization that he looks very good in it. Heather gray t-shirt, light gray sweatpants, bare feet, bed hair; it’s a good look.

It’s being here, in Steve’s house. The knowledge of this is impossible to ignore, much as he’d like to. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be here. It’s July 3rd; Steve turns a whopping hundred and six in a couple hours, at least if you follow a more traditional chronology of events. When he’d asked them to come, to meet his children and stay for the Fourth, Sam hadn’t hesitated.

But the chronology is the thing. Everywhere in this house are reminders that Steve, the young man that Sam knew, is gone; but he’s not gone, not really, he’s here in this house that he now shares with his seventy-something daughter, and that’s sort of hard for a regular human brain to grasp. It’s probably only going to get harder to grasp when the aforementioned daughter actually makes her appearance; she’s been gone since before they got here, having had to drive a couple hours to pick up her younger brother at the airport. She’ll be dropping him off at a hotel in a nearby town, since Bucky and Sam are taking the prime guest spots in the house.

“Hey,” Bucky says, drawing closer, coming to stand by Sam at the sink. “You spend too much time with your head in the clouds as it is.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Hilarious.”

“I’m serious,” Bucky says, although he smiles, easy, as if to settle Sam’s nerves. “It’s been there since we got here.”

Sam sets his glass down on the countertop next to the sink. “It’s not weird to you?” he asks. “Being here?”

“Sure it is,” Bucky says. “But admittedly, you’re talking to someone with a looser grip on time than you.”

“I lost five years just like everybody else,” Sam points out. Well, not everyone; just several billion, at least on this planet. “I’ve got some idea of what it feels like.”

“Yeah, but you feel like you lost Steve,” Bucky says, leaning forward on his hands, his gaze steady, clear-eyed, as he zeroes in and nails the target, first try. “And you did, really.”

Sam does not try to argue with this. He and Bucky squabble about a lot of things—really, bickering has been their foreplay since well before they ever actually started fooling around—but he’s not in the mood for it tonight. “I lost more than that,” is all he says. 

He thinks of Natasha and something twinges painfully within his rib cage. Wanda’s alive, but he hasn’t heard from her in a couple months now. He’s called the number she was last at more than once, an avuncular sense of concern brewing, but he hopes he would’ve heard if something had happened to her. The two of them plus Steve made up the last unit he’d known, before the two-man operation he now runs with Bucky. Three if you count Sharon, though she has ops of her own.

“True,” Bucky says. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Sam says, brisk. “Not your fault I’m overthinking shit. What are my chances of finding a nightcap around here, d’you think?”

Bucky shrugs. “Some white wine in the fridge,” he says. “Not open yet, though.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “You been poking around in the fridge?”

Bucky shrugs. “I get hungrier than most,” he says. “You know that.”

Sam does know that; it’s another one of those things about Bucky that he finds ridiculous even as he feels a little swell of affection just thinking about it. As if he can tell Sam is trying to decide between fondness and exasperation, Bucky reaches past him, picks up Sam’s glass, and takes a long drink from it, tipping the scales out of his favor.

“Hey,” Sam says. “Plenty of cups in this house, man, don’t backwash.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow at this. Sam is well aware that he’s exchanged plenty of saliva with Bucky already, among other fluids. “It’s the principle of the thing,” Sam says, reaching out to catch Bucky’s wrist lightly.

“I don’t think water or wine are going to help you,” Bucky says, tilting his head, a smile playing around his mouth. “Maybe something else, though.”

Sam is about to debate the idea that he needs help—help with what? Calming down? Sleeping?—when it occurs to him what Bucky is up to. “Absolutely not,” Sam says. “You’re fucking with me.”

“No, but I’d sure like to be,” Bucky says, and Sam rolls his eyes so hard he nearly strains something. He lets go of Bucky’s wrist, but of course he allows it when Bucky sets the glass down and shifts closer until his chest brushes Sam’s shoulder.

Try as he might, Sam knows he’d been hoping for this, for some closeness. He’d glanced in on the room Bucky was supposed to be in for the night and thought—hoped—that he might still be awake, as sleepless as Sam, and he hadn’t been surprised to find that Bucky was.

It’s not that they always share a bed; they don’t, out of a mostly subconscious respect—at least on Sam’s end—for an amorphous set of unspoken rules from when this thing could still be called _ blowing off steam_. 

But sometimes they do, and tonight feels like one of those nights when they should.

Like he can hear this, or maybe just like he knows Sam too well by now, Bucky says, in the quiet tone of an admission, “I got worried when you didn’t go back to your room.”

Sam smiles at this. “What, you were worried I got snatched on my way to the kitchen? Steve’s great-grandkids’ fridge art gobbled me up?”

Bucky rolls his eyes, but he’s trying not to smile, too. “Sooner or later you’re going to learn how to let me be sweet to you.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam says, aware that Bucky is leaning even closer, pressing his luck. Sam decides to let him. “I don’t always like you sweet.”

“Oh, believe me,” Bucky says, “I’ve noticed.”

Sam lets Bucky kiss him, still clinging to the idea that he’s just going along with this. Just blowing off steam. _ Yeah, right,_ he thinks, once they’ve shifted so that Sam is standing in front of Bucky with Bucky’s back against the counter. He can’t even lie to himself anymore; he’s never been especially good at it.

They kiss like that for a while, and eventually Sam crowds Bucky back against the counter, planting his hands on the wood on either side of Bucky’s hips. Bucky doesn’t seem to mind, if the way he starts sucking on Sam’s neck is any indication. “Thought you said ‘absolutely not,’” he mumbles.

“Alright, be a smug fuck, see where it gets you.”

“Gotten me plenty of places before,” Bucky says, palming Sam’s ass, bold, “places I’d like to go again.”

Sam snorts. “God, you’re corny.”

“You like it,” Bucky says, mouth against Sam’s jaw. “Love it, even.”

Sam goes a little warm all over. Bucky’s chest is warm and solid, easy to overheat against. It occurs to Sam that Bucky smells like him. “You’re wearing my shirt.”

“Yeah, we established that,” Bucky says, letting a hand toy with the waistband of Sam’s basketball shorts, although if he thinks Sam is removing any clothing right now he’s really lost his mind. “You’ll get it back, don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

“Nah,” Sam says, leaning his head back slightly, so he can meet Bucky’s eyes. “You keep it.”

Bucky smiles, smug as ever, although the expression slackens somewhat when Sam presses a palm against him through his sweats. He’s hard, getting harder. “Damn,” Sam says. “Already?”

Bucky tucks his face back into the crook of Sam’s neck like he’s shy, lets out a choppy exhale when Sam rubs him through the soft fabric of his sweatpants. “Maybe I was hoping you’d indulge me a little,” he says. Then, unaccountably honest: “I wanted to be close to you.”

Sam does not allow himself to register the intimacy of that statement, not when they’re necking in the middle of a mid-century kitchen. Thank God there’s not many pictures in here—Sam doesn’t think he could put his hand down Bucky’s pants with a family portrait staring down at him. Even doing it near the fridge art is a little uncomfortable if he thinks about it.

“You think too much, sugar,” Bucky says, shifting his weight, impatient.

Sam gives him a little squeeze, just to hear him gasp, then says, “Making up for you, I guess.”

He keeps at it, strokes steady and firm, the kind that won’t get Bucky off too quickly but will make it real good when he does. He listens to Bucky’s breathing get shorter, relishes in it, twists his hand just so to make Bucky rock forward on the balls of his feet, breath hitching.

“Let’s go to your room,” Bucky murmurs, caged against the counter by Sam’s body and, judging by the antsy note in his voice, getting close. “You can fuck me if you want.”

Sam’s already been mulling the idea over, debating whether he wants to put Bucky on his hands and knees or ride his dick, really burn off some energy. But, being a former science experiment and all, Bucky can come now and practically be ready to go again by the time they reach the guest room; Sam decides to open the floor up to him. “Yeah?” he says, kissing Bucky’s neck. “You want it that bad? Or—”

But Bucky has gone tense, and not in a fun, about-to-come way. “Sam,” he says. “Wait—”

Sam hasn’t really even had time to process this, hand going slack as he lifts his head to look Bucky in the eyes, when he hears a hinge creak. 

“Viv?” Steve says, “that you?”

“Aw hell,” Bucky says, in the tone of someone who’s just realized they’re missing the game, or something equally mundane.

Sam’s brain short-circuits like a wet toaster. Instinct demands that he step away from Bucky immediately, but higher brain function kicks in just in time to remind him that that would mean leaving Bucky standing there, scrambling to cover himself, which is somehow even worse than just staying where he is, with his back—mercifully—to the door.

“Oh,” Steve says. “Jesus.”

The door squeaks again, more quietly on the backswing, presumably as Steve turns around and hightails it out of there—relatively speaking. Now Sam does back away, finally looking at Bucky’s face directly, recognizing surprise and—goddamn him—disappointment there.

“I,” Sam says, “am going to end your shit, oh my _ God_.”

“Sam, sweetheart,” Bucky says, adjusting the waistband of his sweatpants, “there’s no need to go to pieces—”

“I’m not going to pieces!” Sam hisses. “In the fucking kitchen! You jump my bones in the _ kitchen!_”

Bucky opens his mouth, looking as though he’s going to argue this point, then closes it, inhales through his nose, exhales, and speaks. “Listen, Steve’s seen me do some shit,” he says. “Hell, he’s even seen me get jerked off before. Well, I don’t know how much he _ saw_, it was dark, but that’s beside the point.”

“And what point would that be?” Sam asks, incredulous. “Steve might’ve seen you do some strange shit, but he’s never seen _ me _ do it, and with you of all people—”

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?” Bucky asks, brows drawing together slightly, and it takes Sam a second to identify his expression as one of mild hurt.

Sam reaches up, rubs at the bridge of his nose, anxious and overwhelmed and loathing it. “You know what I—” he says, irked, not sure where he’s going with this. “I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right. Christ. I’m going to _ bed_.”

Almost as soon as he shuts the door to the guest bedroom behind him, he regrets bolting. They’re all adults here, and thus far he’s acting the least like one. It honestly would’ve been easier to handle this gracefully had Steve’s daughter come home and walked in on them; still weird, of course, but she doesn’t know either of them from Adam, really. Steve, on the other hand, is _ Steve_—to both of them, no less.

Sam wills himself not to pace nervously around the room like he wants to, instead taking off his shirt—he usually sleeps shirtless, especially during the summer—and forcing himself into bed. He ignores the heat of adrenaline still coursing through him, as well as the mild but unpleasant ache in his groin, and tries to pretend like he’s going to fall asleep now.

It takes a little while—thirty minutes, maybe; the clock is to Sam’s back, and he’s still hoping that if he lies still long enough his brain will spontaneously shut off, and possibly erase the memory of this event overnight—but the door, predictably, eases open. This one doesn’t have a squeaky hinge, but the wood floor creaks when someone ghosts into the room, shutting the door lightly behind them, before getting into the double bed next to Sam.

Bucky doesn’t do anything like pull Sam against him or try to talk; it’s possible he thinks Sam is already asleep. He just settles on his side, although Sam knows he doesn’t like to lie down—or do much of anything—with his back facing a door, and reaches out to rest his hand lightly on Sam’s hip. The vibranium arm should be heavy and cold to the touch, but it’s not, though Sam wouldn’t mind even if it was. He focuses on this point of contact, on the light circles Bucky rubs with his thumb, and then his eyes open to the light of dawn.

When he wakes up he’s overwarm, and it doesn’t take long to figure out why. It’s July, for one thing, and even the early mornings are warm; for another, Bucky isn’t exactly spooning him, but he is lying close enough to Sam’s back that his body heat is a substantial contribution to what has Sam awake at this hour. He’d have woken up soon anyway, though; his body clamors for a run.

He eases out of bed, the dim blue light creeping in through the blinds just bright enough for him to see by as he gets dressed. Bucky’s expression is relaxed, face slack in sleep, but his eyes flutter open briefly while Sam puts on his running shoes. Sam watches him, wondering if he’ll rouse further, but Bucky seems satisfied that nothing unusual is happening and closes his eyes again.

Running is one of the few pleasantly mind-numbing experiences a person can have, and Sam runs hard, follows a path through the trees behind Steve’s house until it finally peters out into straight up, thickly-wooded forest, at which point he turns around and runs hard back.

It’s early yet by the time he returns, but there are lights on in the house—specifically in the kitchen—so he lets himself in the front door and quickly slips away to shower in the guest bathroom. Eventually he’s going to have to socialize, he knows this, but he’d rather not bump into Steve or his daughter while literally covered in sweat.

Bucky’s nowhere to be found, and after showering and getting dressed, Sam figures out why; he can hear the low murmur of male voices coming from the kitchen as he approaches, plus what sounds like a gentle cacophony of jazz music turned down low. When he enters, Sam is surprised to find Bucky standing at the stove, frying some eggs. Steve is sitting at the kitchen table, his silver head bowed slightly as he peruses the day’s paper through a pair of glasses. The kitchen is brightly lit at this hour, morning sun coming in through the window, charming and homey. It’s a scene Sam is loath to disrupt.

Steve looks up, his eyes owlishly oversized through the lenses of his glasses. “Morning, Sam,” he says.

“Morning,” Sam greets automatically, feeling strangely as though he’s been called into the principal’s office. “Happy birthday, man.”

Bucky, barely six feet away in the tight quarters, glances over his shoulder at Sam. “For you,” he says, indicating a mug of steaming coffee sitting on the counter next to him. He must’ve heard Sam come in, or maybe heard him showering. Judging by the color, he’s already made the coffee up the way Sam likes it: heavy on the cream, one spoonful of sugar.

Sam raises his eyebrows; if they were alone, he’d probably have said, _ oh, so _ now _ your fancy hearing works_. Bucky might read this in his expression, because he just pulls a face and carries on with the eggs. There’s even bacon cooling on a plate. “Thanks,” Sam says, approaching to take the mug. 

“You want your eggs scrambled?” Bucky asks, turning one of the knobs on the stove to lower the heat on the eggs before he covers the pan to finish them off. 

“If you’re offering,” Sam says, still feeling like he might be having an out-of-body experience. At the table, Steve placidly turns a page, now studying the sports section. There’s something about this scene—the two of them in their places, the radio tuned to something from a bygone era, Bucky handsome in a plain white t-shirt, his damp hair freshly combed—that has an air of tradition about it, despite everything. For all Sam knows, they might’ve done this for every one of Steve’s birthdays that they’ve spent together, precious few compared to the ones they’ve spent apart.

“I didn’t know you could cook,” Sam says, uncomfortable when quiet falls and itching to do something productive.

“Well, I had three younger siblings,” Bucky says, glancing up at him with a half-smile. “My mother’s motto was ‘all hands on deck.’ Put some toast on, would you?”

By the time the last slices have popped out of the toaster and Sam has fetched some jelly and butter from the fridge, Bucky has finished and plated everything. “That one’s for the birthday boy,” Bucky says, pointing at one plate. “Though at this point, well past a boy.”

“That’s a little unfair, I think,” Steve says, in the thoughtful, slightly delicate way of speaking he has now, “considering you’re still older than me on paper.”

“Well, I always was the looker of the two of us,” Bucky says dryly, and Sam would probably laugh if he weren’t still desperately trying to figure out how to handle this situation. 

He sits Steve’s plate down on the placemat in front of him, and Steve smiles up at him. “Thanks,” he says. “You don’t have to wait on me, you know. I’m a lot slower than I used to be, but I get around.”

“How come Sam gets the ‘you don’t have to wait on me’ speech?” Bucky says, plunking down a plate for himself and one for Sam. “You’re playing favorites.”

Steve smiles. “I guess he should be the one waiting on us, us being his elders and all.”

Bucky snorts, sits down at the table, and only then does Sam remember to sit down, too. The table could sit six, but they’re all clustered at one end, with Steve at the head. 

“Your kids,” Sam says to Steve, “are they around?”

“You only just missed Vivian,” Steve says. “She’s gone to town to pick up Mike. Should be, oh, twenty more minutes or so.”

Right, so no interruptions for a while yet, and they took care of most of the pleasantries the night before; nothing for it but to grit his teeth and do it. “So,” Sam says, “about last night.”

Steve pauses briefly in buttering a piece of toast, but his expression doesn’t change. Sam glances at Bucky, and finds him wearing his best impassive, formerly brainwashed assassin expression. He raises his eyebrows, as if to say,_ well, go ahead, then_.

“Right,” Steve says, looking up. He’s taken his glasses off, so Sam gets nothing but an unfiltered, but kind, stare. “You never were one for beating around the bush.”

_ Don’t talk like that_, Sam wants to say. _ Don’t remind me that it’s been decades for you and nothing at all for me, man. _

He swallows it down, though, and says, “Never saw much point to it.”

“No, I guess not,” Steve says. “Well, what about it?”

Sam looks at Bucky again, but he seems content on letting Sam do the talking. This is usually how things work, but now it feels pointed. “Just—sorry,” Sam says. “That’s not something I, uh, we, would’ve wanted you to see.”

“I’d imagine so,” Steve says, deadpan, and Bucky snorts.

Sam gives Bucky a sharp look. “So you’re not upset?” he asks. “Weirded out? Hell, curious?”

“I haven’t lived to be this old by sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong,” Steve says mildly, and Sam lets out an incredulous laugh. 

“Yeah, bull_shit_,” he says, when he realizes Steve is fucking with him. The mischievous look he gets hasn’t changed, even if most everything else has.

Steve grins at him briefly, then goes back to buttering his toast. “I’ll admit I was—surprised,” he says, which is probably a polite way of saying, _ absolutely fucking shocked._ “But it’s not so hard for me to wrap my head around.”

There’s a beat of silence. “Really?” Sam asks, bewildered.

“Sam here’s more surprised than anybody,” Bucky says dryly, shoveling food towards his mouth.

Sam gives Bucky a dirty look across the table, and Bucky shoots him a wink in return. “It’s rude to talk with food in your mouth,” Sam says, snide.

Steve wisely elects to ignore this. “I always told myself you two would make a good team. Didn’t quite believe it until recently, but I was right, wasn’t I?”

Then, reaching for the pepper shaker, he adds, “Why didn’t you tell me, if I might ask? Or is it—?” He waves his free hand, although to indicate what, Sam’s not entirely sure.

This ambiguity leaves him waffling for an answer. _ It’s not like that _ —but what does _ like that _ mean, and what if it is _ like that? _It’s not serious? That’s not true, either; the truth of the matter is that he hasn’t—they haven’t—put words to it because it hasn’t been necessary until now. It’s just been the way things are. It’s just been them, together, in some way or another, for months now. Sam supposes, thinking deliberately about it for the first time, that he doesn’t see that changing—he doesn’t want it to, at least.

“It’s—personal, I guess,” he says, aware of Bucky’s eyes on him, as well as Steve’s. When he glances across the table, Bucky gives him another one of those little half-smiles, unreasonably soft at this hour of the morning.

Steve smiles, too, unfailingly reassuring. “It’s private,” he says. “Trust me, I know all about that. You didn’t have to tell me. But it’s nice to know, all the same. You’ll take good care of each other.”

This pronouncement is said with a certain air of finality, and Sam relaxes despite himself, hardly daring to believe the matter settled but strangely relieved all the same. He can’t help but add, “Well. Anyway. Sorry about the whole kitchen thing.”

Steve waves a hand, swallows a mouthful of orange juice, and says, “Don’t worry about it. I’m pretty sure my son was conceived in this kitchen.”

Bucky looks up from his toast. “I don’t care what a dish Carter was, Steve,” he says, “that’s a mental image I didn’t need.”

Sam glances quickly at Steve, unsure how he’ll react to this—Peggy’s gone, of course, and no magic snap’s going to bring her back—but Steve grins, and that seems like permission enough to laugh. Bucky laughs, too, and then nudges Sam with his foot under the table and tells him to _ eat already, c’mon_, and Sam nudges him back and does.

It’ll be easier after this, Sam realizes, in a strange way. He can relax and let the rest of the day unfold. He feels—not comfortable, maybe, there hasn’t been time enough yet for that. But it feels like they’ll get there.


End file.
